Monks Visit Professional Tomato and Cucumber Farmer
Yoginathaswami and SadhakaTejadevanatha flew over to the Big Island to take care of some business and to visit Kawamata Farms in Hilo.
The farm manager David Oshiro gave us a very informative tour of the farm.
Farm was started in the Mid 60s. Today they have 14 workers, 6 trainee's and 3 managers. They started growing field veggies and ran into challenges with controlling bugs that would eat the crops. Then the farm transitioned into flowers. The challenge with flowers is the high competition from other countries that have lower labor cost. Now they grow 3 Acres of hydroponic tomatoes and 3/4 of an acre of cucumbers. The tomatoes have a higher profit margin and the bugs can be controlled in a green hose
Stats of the Farm:
Tomato production: 1 million lbs a year. Cucumbers: 400,000 lbs a year
Tomatoes and Cucumbers are grown in : Coconut husk media that is imported from Sri Lanka.
Liquid fertilizer is fed to the plants through drip irrigation. The system is closely monitored by the Farm Manager. Tomatoes are spaced 5 ft apart by 12 inches
Any bugs that do find the plants are controlled organically with Neem oil. The oil is purchased from India in 55 gallon drums.
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